


Fever

by Cdelphiki



Series: Whumptober 2018 [7]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Batman and Robin (Comics)
Genre: Cold, Father-Son Relationship, Fever, Fluff, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Prompt Fill, Sickfic, Whumptober 2018, tiny bit of angst?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-11
Updated: 2018-10-11
Packaged: 2019-07-28 12:30:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16241666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cdelphiki/pseuds/Cdelphiki
Summary: With everyone away for the week, it's up to his father to take care of Damian.  The child was looking forward to spending the time alone with his father, even if he didn't want to admit it aloud, but when the man doesn't show for three meals in a row and Damian starts to wonder if his father cared at all.Whumptober 2018Day 8: Fever





	Fever

Damian didn’t often get his father to himself.

Well, actually, that was a lie.  Robin got to spend time with Batman every night.  Mostly because his father didn’t trust him to patrol alone, but of course when Damian pressed the issue the man had just cheesily said “it’s Batman _and_ Robin.”    

Yeah.  Whatever.

He enjoyed patrolling with his father, he did, even if Father didn’t trust him.  But, that was Batman and Robin.  Damian Wayne didn’t often get one-on-one time with Bruce Wayne.

Not that he needed it. He wasn’t a child, after all. 

But when Pennyworth went on holiday for a week at the same time Drake and Grayson were away on a mission, leaving Father alone to ‘look out for’ Damian, the 10-year-old wasn’t entirely displeased.  

That is, until Father did not get up that first morning to fix Damian breakfast. 

It wasn’t so much that Damian _needed_ Father to make him eggs. Damian was perfectly capable and could prepare his own food, but it was the principle of the thing.  Father was supposed to be the one handling all this.  Pennyworth had been incredibly explicit in his instructions.

And yet, here was Damian, eating yogurt and granola he’d prepared himself.  All alone at the kitchen counter. 

He wasn’t bitter. 

There was no reason to be upset.  He wasn’t a child who needed his father’s attention.  Not at all.  Yogurt and granola was a perfectly acceptable breakfast, and Damian could get his day started just fine without prompting.  He had a whole stack of schoolwork to complete for Pennyworth. He’d just go do that.

Damian set his bowl in the sink without rinsing it. Whether that was to annoy Father, he wasn’t even sure himself. 

As he walked to his bedroom, Damian glared at the closed door of his father’s room.  Stupid man wasn’t even awake yet. 

“ _Tt._ ”

But he didn’t care. Obviously.

 

The morning passed by slowly as Damian worked his way through  _Othello,_ taking scrupulous notes as he went.  Pennyworth loved his Shakespeare, as did Damian, and their discussion upon the man’s return was bound to be challenging and enlightening. 

Caught up in his work, Damian hardly noticed when lunchtime rolled around.  He finally looked up at the clock around 2pm and realized that Father had never retrieved him for the midday meal. 

Frowning, Damian dragged himself back downstairs to the kitchen, hoping to at least find _something_ left for him.  Instead, he found the kitchen exactly as he’d left it that morning. His bowl of yogurt still unwashed. 

“If _Drake_ were here,” Damian mumbled as he slammed open and shut various cupboards while collecting everything he needed to make a sandwich and some tea, “Father would insist we eat all our meals together.” 

In his rage, Damian knocked his teacup to the ground.  The floral-patterned porcelain shattered into a million pieces with a loud crash, and the cussing Damian emitted when he stepped on a tiny fragment was just as loud. 

“This is ridiculous,” Damian whined as he hopped up on the counter to find and remove the shard from his now cut up foot.  It was too small to remove with his fingers, he’d need tweezers, he thought.  The sharp pieces were everywhere, and Damian had no idea where the damn broom was to clean up the mess. 

Refusing to get back down on the floor, Damian slide across the counter until he could reach for the first aid kid stored below the sink, then got to work tending to his foot. 

After his foot was properly cleaned and bandaged, he leapt from the edge of the counter to the safety of the hall outside, where the teacup remains couldn’t have reached. His father hadn’t even come to investigate the noise, Damian thought bitterly, as he began searching through the various closets around the kitchen for a broom. 

After ten minutes of searching, Damian scowled at the washer and dryer in the laundry room.  “I give up,” he announced defiantly.

He’d tried.  He really had, but apparently the manor did not have a single broom, and Damian was done looking.  Father would just find the mess later. 

It was his fault anyway. Had he just made Damian lunch like Pennyworth told him to do, there wouldn’t have been a problem.  Then Damian remembered the sandwich he had been preparing. 

With a growl, Damian went back to his room to slip on some shoes, then retrieved his sandwich from the kitchen.  On the way back to his bedroom, he shot his Father’s closed bedroom door a dirty look. 

Stupid old man. 

If he were _Drake,_ they'd be downstairs playing video games together. Or watching a movie.  Or just sitting in the same room, doing their own things.

But no.  Damian was just Damian, and Father didn’t care enough for Damian’s company to even _leave his room._ To even _feed_ Damian. 

Who was he kidding? He already knew this.  Father didn’t like him.  It wasn’t a secret. 

Far too annoyed to continue with his schoolwork, Damian kicked off his shoes and lay down in his bed. A nap would be good for him. Maybe he’d wake up less annoyed. 

 

Around 6pm, Damian stomach let out a quiet demand for nourishment, so he got up and went down to the kitchen. 

Surely Father would at least make him dinner.  Right?

Wrong, apparently.

Not only was the bowl of yogurt still in the sink, but the broken teacup was still all over the floor, no sign anyone had been in there all day. 

Beyond pissed now, Damian stormed back up to the family wing and marched straight up to his father’s door. 

“Father,” Damian demanded as he knocked on the closed door, “I demand you make me something for dinner.” 

When no response came from inside, Damian swung open the door to glare at his father, then stopped short. 

Father was asleep. 

 _Father_ was _asleep._

At 6pm. 

After they both went to bed at 3am. 

“Father?” Damian asked hesitantly, the angry tone replaced with a timid one.

Perhaps his father was napping, and Damian was disturbing him. 

Inching further into the room, Damian took a peek at his father’s face and stopped short.

He was ghostly pale. And not just in the way he always was, compared to Damian’s darker complexion.  But in a possibly-needs-a-doctor sort of way. 

“Father?” he asked again as he crept closer to the man, “are you alright?”

When no response came, Damian thought for one terrifying moment that perhaps the man was dead. But then Bruce sniffed and readjusted his head on his pillow. 

Damian reached his hand out and paused with it inches from the man’s forehead.  He’d seen it on TV.  In movies.  In hazy memories of being sick while under Grayson’s care.  Someone feeling a forehead to check for a fever. 

Would Father appreciate the sentiment?  Get angry at Damian touching him?  Not notice at all?

It probably didn’t matter. Damian didn’t have a thermometer on him, and he needed to check, didn’t he? 

Plunging forward, Damian rested his palm on his father’s forehead and immediately pulled back. 

His father was _hot._

Like.  Really, really hot. 

“Father,” Damian said, shaking the man’s shoulder a bit as he did, “wake up.”

“Hrn,” he moaned, rolling onto his back and spreading his arms out dramatically, “what?”

Damian scrunched his eyebrows and frowned, unsure how to respond to his father’s melodrama. Father was always telling _him_ to cut the theatrics, he didn’t know what to do when it was his father behaving in such a way.  Except to maybe bring this up next time Bruce was lecturing him as proof Damian was, in fact, his father’s son. 

“Damian?” Father said, cracking one eye open to peer over at the child, “what is it?  Are you ready for breakfast?”

“Breakfast?” Damian spluttered, “Father, it’s dinnertime.” 

“What?” Bruce said a bit more coherently, forcing himself into a sitting position, “Oh sh- shoot. I’m sorry, Damian, I was supposed to feed you.” 

“It’s fine,” Damian said, frowning at the man, “I had yogurt for breakfast and a sandwich for lunch. Are you ill?”

“I-” Father began, just to cut himself off to rub at his face, “I think so.  Definitely have a fever.  Headache.  Sore throat. Apparently, I slept the day away without noticing, as well.”

“Do you want some soup?” Damian asked, trying to determine if he’d be able to manage soup.  If they had canned soup, he was positive he’d be able to heat it up on the stove.  He'd just need to wear shoes. 

Groaning, Bruce reached over to his nightstand and retrieved his cellphone, “That would be nice, actually. And some Tylenol.” 

Damian nodded and turned to retrieve the requested items, just to be stopped by Father.

“Come here, what do you want?”

“What?” Damian asked, raising an eyebrow, “what do you mean?”

“Dinner,” Father said, patting the bed next to him, requesting Damian hop up and sit, “What do you want?”

“I’m gonna order some chicken noodle soup from Marie’s,” Father explained as Damian climbed up on the bed, “There’s that vegetarian place just next door I know you love.  It wouldn’t be too annoying to have the uber driver go to both.” 

“Uber driver?” Damian questioned as he looked down at the phone his father had tilted so he could see, too. 

“Yeah, I’ll pay them extra to drive all the way out here.  I doubt they’ll mind.  What do you want?”

 

Forty-five minutes, a trip to answer the door, and a few retrieved Tylenol later, Damian found himself back in his father’s room.

He thought once he delivered the Tylenol and chicken noodle soup, his father would kick him out, but instead the opposite had happened. 

Father had requested he sit up on the bed again so they could eat dinner together.  And Damian was so confused. 

When Damian was sick, he wanted nothing more than to just be left alone.  He honestly did not find being coddled comforting while sick.  As long as someone brought him a bowl of soup or glass of water from time to time, he was fine with no human contact. 

So why would Father insist Damian stay after delivering the soup?

“Don’t tell Alfred we’re eating in bed,” Father said with a crooked smile, “he’ll never trust me to watch you again.”    

“Okay,” Damian said slowly, his face screwed into a confused expression as he poked at the bowl of gnocchi he’d picked out. 

“What’s your favorite movie?”

Damian startled and shot his father a searching look.  “What?”

“Favorite movie?” Father said again, “Do you have one?”

Clearly the Tylenol and soup were doing their job if Father was speaking so much with a supposedly sore throat. 

“I-” Damian started, then frowned.  He honestly didn’t know what his favorite movie was.  He wasn’t expecting such a question.  Probably ever, to be honest.  What kind of question even was that?

“That’s okay,” Father said, pulling his phone out again and scrolling through a list of something, “Have you ever seen _Peter Pan?”_

“I am not a _child,”_ Damian hissed, stabbing at gnocchi to take a bite, “I do not waste my time on such frivolities.” 

“Well then,” Father said, settling back against the headboard as he tapped something on his phone, “looks like we’ve found what we’re watching.”

“Watching?” Damian still didn’t understand. 

“Just sit back and relax, son,” Father said as he tapped something on his phone, causing the projector in the room to power on and the lights to dim, “I can’t go out on patrol sick, and we’ve got an entire day to make up for.” 

Damian ignored the tinge of warmth being called ‘son’ always caused him and shook his head.  “It is not necessary you watch a children’s movie with me, Father,” Damian said, “I am perfectly capable of entertaining myself in far more constructive manners.”

“That’s true,” Father said, wrapping an arm around Damian’s shoulders and dragging him backward until he was rested against the headboard, leaning slightly into Father’s side, “but I was kind of hoping I’d get some time alone with my son this week.”

“You were?”  Damian hated how small and hopeful his voice sounded. 

“Of course I was, Damian,” Father said, tightening his grip a bit around Damian’s shoulder in what was likely meant to be a hug, “I’m sorry I slept through the entire day.  I’ll make it up to you.”

Finally, once everything had loaded and the projector lamp warmed up adequately, _Peter Pan_ began playing on the wall opposite Father’s bed. And Damian felt incredibly guilty.

“I broke a china cup,” Damian said sheepishly, suddenly worried that Father would go back to not wanting him around knowing how incompetent he’d been at caring for himself that day. 

“That’s alright,” Father rasped, tilting his head so it was rested in Damian’s hair, “It’s just a cup. Did you hurt yourself?”

Damian frowned.  “Just a tiny cut.  I cleaned it and put a Band-Aid on it.”

“Okay,” Father whispered.

“It’s still shattered on the floor in the kitchen,” Damian added hastily.

Father squeezed him again and said, “We’ll get it tomorrow.”

“I couldn’t find-”

“Damian,” Father interrupted, “it’s okay.  Just enjoy the movie.” 

With a nod, Damian settled down in his Father’s arm and did just that.  And if he fell asleep there that night after watching three Disney movies in a row, no one would know except him and his father. 

**Author's Note:**

> So my little idea sentence was "This could totally be Bruce and Damian is there to care for him," which in my head translated to Bruce was sick and Damian does everything to take care of him. But like, is that a real thing that happens? _Honestly_? Because I've never been a high maintenance sick person, I very much want to be left alone while sick. As long as I've got everything I need, go away. Don't touch me. 
> 
> Idk. Anyway, as I was wrestling with that, this just came out. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
>  
> 
> [Tumblr](https://cdelphiki.tumblr.com)


End file.
